Se JENNIFER LANG H mINIKNE TOEWS Mystery, B.C. AVE YOU seen the movie Mystery, Alaska? If you haven't you needn't bother, it’s not that good. However, it does have its enjoyable moments and it has some uncanny parallels to what's going on in the news around here right now. It’s fun to play Spot the Canadian Actor, as it was filmed in Canmore, Alberta. You will recognize Maury Chakin, the big guy who also played the wacko officer in Dances With Wolves. 1 also recognized a few faces from North of 60 and a guy who does banking ads on TV. The story: a small Alaska town has a regu- lar Saturday hockey game on a pond, which is the major social event of the community. The Judge (Burt Reynolds) is the coach, the mayor (Colm Meany) is on the committee that de- cides who plays, the sheriff (Russel Crowe) is an: older player. An article about the Saturday Game in Sports Hlustrated leads to the New York Rangers team planning to come up to play an exhibition game. Naturally, the townspeople are excited, but also nervous about how their players will stack up against the big guys. A second plot line involves a big box store called PriceCutters (can you say Wal-Mart?) planning to come into town, There is a court- room drama where the lacal hardware store owner claims he didn’t mean to shoot the PriceCutters rep in the foot, it was a ricochet off a wheelbarrow. There is plenty of opportun- ity to champion small-town values, the impor- tance of local business, the need to defeat evil Big City Southern corporations ruining A Way of Life. Meanwhile, the mayor goes wild in building an Olympic-sized rink, complete with boards and national advertisers. The hockey players, including that hunky Australian, point out the fancy new rink makes it an uneven playing field for the home team: the locals play on ponds, with no boards, which means they play a game with no banking, the rebounding off the boards. The Mayor is spending huge dollars (one resident asks, “Will we have to close the school?”} to make the New Yorkers more comfortable. Then the news comes that the Players Union has decided not to come up. You should see the look on Colm Meany’s face: no warp- drive problem on the Enterprise has made him this dismayed, Burt Reynolds wonders how they might sue them for breach of contract when there is... no contract. This reminds me of the Terrace-Kitimat Airport (and the City of Terrace) wanting to spend a few million dollars to extend the run- way for Westjet. No contract there, either. And the local airlines certainly don’t need it, they use the apprepriate game-plan (smaller planes, experienced local pilots) for the environment. ‘The mayor goes wild in build- ing an Olympic-sized rink.’ The Big Ws are like Purple Loose-strife or Zebra Mussels. These are introduced species that make the environment change to suit their needs, rather than adapting themselves to the existing environment. Purple Loose-strife and Zebra Mussels, if not put in check, can choke indigenous species. We pull watercress out of Howe Creek every year so as to keep the stream clear and healthy for the local flora and fauna. I am not suggesting Terrace retailers or air carriers need to be put on any endangered list: far from it. 1] do want to point out they are part of the local ecosylem, with organic relation- ships and deep roots that are not always appar- ent to the casual observer, The celluloid version of a small town facing big challenges follows a Hollywood formula, and does not need to trouble itself with biology or economics, Mystery, Alaska is a fantasy, after all, where all ends well. The jury finds the hardware store proprietor not guilty, partly because they want to register their protest at the big box store’s plans, and partly because he is the hockey team's best scorer. Maury Chakin goes to New York and con- vinces a judge the Rangers are morally ob- liged to come up and play a game in the huge new rink, Bul Mystery, B.C., aka Terrace, is not a slage-set. It is a reality show with no edits and no script doctors. The ending, a real Rocky block-buster feel. . good denouement, does ring true. The Rangers go away and the local team stays, of course, to play another day. TERRACE STANDARD The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 26, 2003 - B5 S thi fish You've got to hand it to the songwriting duo behind Terrace’s newest musical sensation, Dr. Fishy. The band has captured the magic of northwestern B.C. By JENNIFER LANG A NEW CD by one of Terrace’s best up-and-coming bands isn't just good. It’s essential listening. Red Fish Blve is Dr, Fishy’s im- pressive follow-up to 2002's cat- chy Bottom Bouncing, favourite. Helmed by fish hatchery tech- nician James Powell and medical doctor Greg Linton, Dr. Fishy is . probably one of the most unlikely musical pairings in northern Brit- ish Columbia. For one thing, this ain’t no teenage garage band with Cleara- sil dreams of rock and roll glory. Instead, the two singer-song- writers at the centre of Dr. Fishy * are approaching middle age. Both are married with children. What’s even more remarkable is that one half of the band is Down Under. Linton is on a year’s leave in a place called Namucca Head in New South Wales, Au- stralia. He and an Australian doctor swapped medical practices for a year as part of an arrangement that was in place long before Dr. Fishy really started to take off. .The duo got together for the first time less than a year ago. Powell, who’s been writing and performing his own songs for . years, was asked to perform at the Terrace Community Band’s an- nual Spring Fling dance, The truth is, the bespectacled father of two is kind of. shy, so he asked Linton if he'd be interested in joining him on stage. He'd seen the doctor sing at couple of local dinner parties last year. “He had a great voice,” Po- well recalls. They rehearsed. together but _ had no idea what to expect. They just hoped they didn’t suck. Unexpectedly, they were the talk of the Fling; a phenomenon was born. Soon Dr. Fishy started performing and put out an album, Bottom Bouncing. When friends and fans — called a local cult. DR. FISHY bandmates Dr. Greg Linton, left, and James Powell at an exclusive local gig last year. nurses who showed up al a show wearing T-shirts with that descrip- tion — snapped up the duo's origi- nal CD, the budding balladeers quickly decided to record a sec- ond album. But time was running out. Lin- ton had a plane to catch. “We had a fast and furious few weeks in July last year in which we did 99 per cent of the record- ing,” Linton says. “It carried on unti] moments before I got on the plane.” “He was deathly ill and we ended up recording until midnight,” Powell says. “Why we did it at all, ] don’t know. Looking back, if seems crazy. We just wanted to ride the wave. It seemed to be working.” The two alternate songwriting duties, but Dr, Fishy is really a case of the sum being more than “Fish Heads” after a group of JAMES POWELL with the new CD, Red Fish Blue. “-ingitcurve, Plus, » its parts. “It just works,” shrugs Powell. “I've been looking for something like this for a long time. It’s definitely the combina- lion that works.” Mixing the CD was a painstak- ing process that involved months of work. There was a steep tearn- there'was’ the added difficulty of Linton being 50, far away. He’d get cassettes in the mail and provide comments by email, Other times he listened over the speakerphone as Powell and recording engineer Chris An- drews played back the latest ef- forts, eventually settling on a final sound. The two men were joined by a team of local musicians in the studio, including drummer Darryl McDicken, bass players John Kri- singer and Dylan Gordon, guitarist Rick Marasco and others. Local artist Dave Comfort pro- vided the essential, final touch: he designed the cover and the band's logo, giving Dr. Fishy a distinctive, salmon-inspired ident- ity. The final product, completed this winter, is a tribute to the power of their songwriting — and to the careful attention the duo paid to the quality of the sound on. the CD. Terrace residents will recog- nize Red Fish Blue for what it really is ~ a love letter to the Skeena Valley. The album captures the magic of living in a place that’s often ig- nored or misunderstood by outsi- ders. Powell and Linton — who didn’t grow up here ~ have the kind of unconditional love only irans- plants seem to be able to express for their adopted home. Consider the song Cranberry Junction, which strings together local place names that start with the letter K like so much exotic _ poetry: Kitlope, .Kemano,-Khuizey;, -mateen/ Kildala, Kiwanga Kleena_.. “Kleen, eho dub oh Even cooler, the song includes the one-of-a-kind sound of CFNR broadcaster Lynn Terbasket deli- vering her trademark aboriginal weather forecast. The album even pays tribute to local history. “Zombie Town" commemorates the Terrace muti- ny during the Second World War, while “Waves in the Way” looks at life for a family of cannery workers, Listeners will delight in disco- vering local references in the lyr- ics and on the liner notes, where they're sure to recognize some of their neighbours who helped make the CD a reality. Fans of original music will ap- preciate the well crafted songs. They’re folksy for the most part, built on a foundation of acoustic guitar, but layered with other instruments. There’s the oc- casional surprise — from tin whis- tles to banjos. The CDs are available at the North Store, Kermode Trading, Misty River Books, Sight and Sound and Cafenera. When Linton returns to Terrace this summer, you can count on a big Dr. Fishy reunion concert ten- tatively titled Fish Head Stew. You'll want to buy your tickets early. Local lad up for music award His band One Ton earns a Juno nod By JENNIFER LANG A GUITARIST and song- writer from Terrace is among this year’s Juno no- minees. Byron Mikaloff plays guitar for the eclectic Quebec City pop trio, One Ton, a band that has been nominated in the new group of the year category. One Ton has been no- minated along with Bet. E & Stef, Crush, Simple Plan, and Thecry of a Deadman. The album spawned the single, Superseaworld, BYRON MIKA heading east to attend the Quebec Music Conserva- tory to study classical gui- tar. He went on to form One Ton with Christobal Tapia de Veer and singer Zita. The band’s two videos were in rotation on Much- Music this summer. The 2003 Juno award ceremonies will be broad- cast live on CTV from the Corel Centre in Ontario on Sunday, April 6. The annual awards show, which celebrates the best in Canadian music, will be hosted by country superstar Shania Twain. The show features per- formances from Avril La- LOFF, right, is one-third of the Juno nominated pop trio, One Ton. He's joined by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, left, and singer Zita. vigne, Swollen Members, Remy Shand, Our Lady which cracked the Cana- Peace and Blue Rodeo, dian top 10 in the summer. One Ton’s recording en- gineer, Eric Filto, has been nominated for his work on the band's 2002 debut CD, Abnormal Plea- sures, Mikaloff, 26, who once program, formed Terrace grunge metal band Gypsy played in the school band Moth in the 1990s before Tom Cochrane is being inducted into the Canadian - Music: Hall of Fame.